This piece was crossposted from the Afpak Channel.

In 2014, Afghanistan is scheduled to hold its third presidential election since 2004, just 18 months after the next U.S. presidential inauguration, and at the height of the withdrawal of the international military presence. Then, just a year later, they are supposed to hold a legislative election in 2015. There is little prospect that either election will be adequately funded or competently administered. But even if, by some miracle, they come off without a hitch, they will only serve to entrench the corrupt, over-centralized administration in Kabul, and do little to improve governance in the localities. Holding elections in Afghanistan in the midst of its long-running political crisis is a lose-lose situation.

The United States and United Nations should work with the Afghans instead to push for a grand political bargain that could actually make a difference in the counterinsurgency against the Taliban: a new Loya Jirga to amend the constitution, devolve power, adjust the electoral calendar, change the voting system, and invite the Taliban to form a political party. Neither Kabul nor the international community stands to gain from holding another round of elections, but a new political bargain can break the paralysis in Kabul and break the logjam in talks with the Taliban.

I. Devolve Power

Afghanistan's slow-burning political crisis began in 2003, when a Loya Jirga convened in Kabul in December to ratify a new constitution. The new document was modeled closely on the 1964 constitution, itself following closely in the footsteps of constitutions in 1923 and the 1890s. That a new democratic constitution was modeled on the older constitutional monarchy is telling: The new system simply replaced the hereditary Afghan monarch with an elected President and retained on paper many of the centralized powers that the Afghan kings had claimed (though not always exercised) since the late 19^th Century. The new constitution was unanimously ratified by acclamation in January 2004.

The United States and the U.N. are often blamed for creating or forcing a centralized system onto the Afghans at the Bonn Conference in 2001. The accusation is wrong -- the centralized system came from the Afghans themselves, stemming from the century-old practice of Afghan rulers, and readily accepted by the Loya Jirga. But the point remains true that Afghanistan has one of the most highly centralized systems of government in the world. Provincial governments are not independent governments, like U.S. states, but implementing agencies of Kabul. Provincial councils are advisory, not legislative, bodies. Provincial governors and district chiefs are appointed by the president, not elected by the people. Provincial and district police chiefs are also appointed by the president, not by governors. That makes the president personally responsible for hiring and firing every governor and police chief in 34 provinces and nearly 400 districts nation-wide.

The centralization is almost completely unsuitable to Afghanistan's culture, economy, and society. According to Thomas Barfield's magisterial book, Afghanistan: A Political and Cultural History (arguably the most intelligent thing written on Afghanistan in a decade), the Afghan government has always claimed centralized powers, but has been most successful when it exercises those powers sparingly, or in cooperation with local elites like tribal elders and landowners. Efforts to use centralized government to compel social change tended to provoke resistance, as it did under the reign of the modernizing king Amanullah Khan (1919-1929), who was overthrown by a coalition of rural tribes and conservative mullahs; the communizing efforts of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (1978-1989); and the Islamizing efforts to the Taliban (1994-2001), the two most recent of which sparked civil war.

Despite the potential lessons of that history, the ten-year reign of Hamid Karzai looks more like Amanullah in his efforts to centralize power and push social reform, than that of Zahir Shah (1933-73), who took a more relaxed approach to the provinces and whose rule was marked by relative stability. Devolving power, for example by making governors elected and giving them the power of appointments in their province, giving provincial councils legislative power, and enabling provinces to levy their own taxes would bring the formal government into closer alignment with the informal practices that worked in the past.

Read on

Among the Iraq-related anniversaries to consider, here's one more:  Twenty-one years ago this week, millions of Iraqi Kurds set flight for the desolate, snow-capped mountains bordering Turkey and Iran, frantically seeking to escape the advancing armies of Saddam Hussein. Fresh off his humiliating defeat in the first Gulf War, Saddam had quickly trained his guns on wiping out all internal opposition to his tyrannical rule.

Where the Kurds were concerned, his purpose seemed clear. Saddam aimed to eliminate once and for all the persistent challenge this proud, irrepressible minority had long posed to his dictatorship. Genocide was on tap, the completion of a job begun in 1988, when Iraqi forces razed thousands of Kurdish villages, murdered their inhabitants, and rained chemical weapons down on the innocent men, women and children of a town called Halabja.

Now, with their backs literally to the wall, freezing to death on a barren mountainside, facing Saddam's full vengeance, the Kurds' destruction seemed nigh.

Until, that is: America. Said. No. Working with a small group of allies, the United States, quite simply, saved the Kurds. Saddam's army was ordered to stand down or face renewed hostilities. U.S. ground forces deployed to northern Iraq and organized one of history's greatest humanitarian rescues, Operation Provide Comfort. A no-fly zone was established over Kurdistan, which U.S. aircraft patrolled until 2003, when America finally settled its score with Saddam for good, liberating almost 30 million people from his republic of fear, including the long-suffering Kurds.

It's a story of deliverance and American leadership well worth recalling, especially this year. For the first time in a generation, Iraq's Kurds find themselves without direct American protection. President Obama's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq has once again left the Kurds largely alone. While no longer confronting Saddam's terror, the long shadow of their anguished history remains, as do unresolved tensions not only with Iraq's majority Arabs, but with powerful neighbors in Iran, Syria and Turkey struggling with disadvantaged Kurdish minorities of their own.

It's a mix of fear, loathing and foreign meddling that, left untended, could easily lead to conflict and even war -- both inside Iraq and, perhaps, regionally. That, indeed, would be tragic -- for the often-betrayed Kurds, to be sure, but also for the prestige and long-term interests of their main benefactor, the United States.

Say what you will about the American project in Iraq, its application in Kurdistan was well down the path toward success. As happened in Germany, Japan and South Korea after World War II, a few decades of intense American engagement had begun working wonders for the Kurds. Excellent security -- indeed, not a single U.S. combat death in areas under Kurdish control. A booming economy with growing levels of foreign investment. And an emerging democracy that, while far from perfect, has seen real opposition parties emerge, as well as a burgeoning civil society and media. Yes, corruption, lack of accountability, and uneven development remain serious problems. But certainly no worse than, say, South Korea circa the 1970s, at a similar point in that country's experience under America's wing.

Properly nourished, Iraqi Kurdistan has all the makings of a U.S. strategic asset. Iraq's Arabs may have been profoundly ambivalent about a continued role for American troops. But not the Kurds, whose leaders loudly proclaimed their desire for a permanent U.S. presence, and whose population of some 5 million is overwhelmingly pro-American. Sharing borders with Iran and Syria, Kurdistan could play a vital role in U.S. strategy to combat the serious threats now emanating from those anti-American regimes. Kurdish security and intelligence forces are competent and battle-hardened, and after years of cooperation have built up excellent working relations with their U.S. counterparts, including in fighting Al Qaeda. And sitting atop 40-50 billion barrels of oil, Kurdistan is poised to become one of the world's largest petroleum producers, a major contributor to global energy security.

Confident in its U.S. backing, Kurdistan could serve as both engine and anchor for the rest of Iraq's democratic development. But America's precipitous retreat has left behind a dangerous vacuum, a potential breeding ground for destructive acts of self-help that could easily spiral out of control That vacuum urgently needs to be filled by a concerted American strategy to define a new, "special" relationship with Iraq's Kurds. Making clear that Kurdistan's well-being within a truly federal Iraq is a high U.S. priority could serve both to deter potential aggressors while encouraging Kurdish restraint, patience and cooperation in dealing with the turmoil of Baghdad's day-to-day politics.

When Kurdish President Masoud Barzani visits Washington next month, the Obama administration would be well advised to use the opportunity to establish a new Joint Commission on U.S.-Kurdish relations to oversee the bilateral relationship, composed of high-level officials from both sides. America's consulate in Kurdistan should be led by a senior foreign service officer of ambassadorial rank, perhaps seconded by a retired general. Under the rubric of U.S. security assistance for Iraq, programs for equipping and training Kurdish security and intelligence services should be established, including robust channels for information sharing and other cooperative efforts. A joint initiative to expand dramatically American investment in Kurdistan needs to be launched, with a focus on expediting the region's emergence as a reliable energy exporter to Western markets. Technical assistance should be provided to support Kurdish efforts to battle corruption, strengthen the rule of law, and ensure human rights.

More than two decades after saving Iraq's Kurds from annihilation, it's time for America to institutionalize a long-term strategic relationship with them -- one that understands that a secure and prosperous Kurdistan, confident in its ties to the world's sole superpower, can be a boon to U.S. interests, and a force for stability and modernism throughout Iraq and the broader Middle East.

Here we go again.

President Obama has reportedly asked for military options in Syria, including "humanitarian airlifts, naval monitoring of Syria and the establishment of a no-fly zone, among other possibilities," according to the New York Times.

If the Syrian people are morally justified in fighting against their own government, then it is permissible (though not necessarily prudent) for the United States and other international actors to come to their aid. That is why the United States is and should be at least rhetorically and diplomatically on the side of the protesters and rebels. Further assistance might take the form of humanitarian assistance and money, with training and weapons a next step. But should it include a U.S. military deployment?

It's a hard case to make. Just because the Syrians have a just cause doesn't make it our fight. It becomes our fight if intervening in Syria a) would further U.S. national security interests, b) at an acceptable cost, c) with a reasonable chance of creating a situation in Syria better than the present one.

We certainly have a greater national security stake in Syria than we did in Libya, but is it enough to justify an intervention? Here's the best case I can make: we are fighting a 30-year Cold War against Iran, and anything we can do to contain and limit Iran's influence is good. Toppling the regime in Syria eliminates Iran's main regional ally and a major transit route for weapons and Hezbollah. Therefore, we should take advantage of the unique opportunity that the Syrian uprising affords us and make regime change in Damascus official U.S. policy. Fellow Shadow Government contributor John Hannah made a similar argument last year.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that's a sufficiently vital interest; I'll revisit it in a little bit. We still have to ask if an intervention is achievable and cost-effective. Here the argument for intervention becomes even harder. There is no international coalition supporting an intervention in Syria, making it harder to assure the Syrians of the benevolence of any intervention. The split in Syria is alarmingly along sectarian lines, suggesting there would be little chance of forming a national unity government after the fall of Assad and risking a replay of the 2006-7 Iraqi civil war. The nature of the fighting in Syria makes an outside intervention harder: rebels control no territory, a no-fly zone would be simply irrelevant, a no-drive zone would be tantamount to invasion.

Furthermore, Obama showed in Libya that he is willing to topple a regime and then walk away, leaving the hard work of peacebuilding to others and casting serious doubt on the future of post-Qaddafi Libya. That precedent bodes ill for a post-Assad Syria. Additionally, the domestic political pressure to reduce U.S. spending makes it hard for Obama, or any American policymaker, to push for the kind of large-scale reconstruction and stabilization assistance that a post-war Syrian would need. In short, there is a sadly low probability that we could overthrow Assad, replace him with something better, and avoid chaos.

More broadly, I doubt that we have the kind of political will necessary to make an intervention of this sort effective. I admit this can be a self-fulfilling prophecy (the more we write about how little political will we have, the less political will we have). I especially hate it when this kind of argument is leveled against the intervention in Afghanistan, a place where we have demonstrated astonishing political will for more than a decade. And I dislike the argument because it implies a defeatist, pessimistic take on American capabilities. I tend to agree with Robert Kagan that the stories of our decline and fall are greatly exaggerated.

Nonetheless, some realistic pessimism is appropriate in this particular case. Does anyone think the Obama administration, or the American foreign policy establishment generally, has what it takes to do a Syrian intervention right? I want to believe that we can do this because it is almost a textbook-perfect case of where our interests and our ideals have aligned with rare harmony. But if I, the last champion of nation-building, am skeptical, is anyone else going to believe it is possible?

Now let's return to our interests at stake in Syria. Our involvement in Syria would essentially be a proxy fight in our broader campaign against Iran. But there is a danger in choosing to make Syria a battlefield. We might sink time, money, troops, and energy into regime change in Syrian; meanwhile, Iran successfully completes and weaponizes the nuclear cycle. Syria would be a pyrrhic victory. We run the risk of confusing a sideshow with the main event. The main event is Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Will intervening in Syria prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? Who is an intervention most likely to slow down: Iran, or the United States?

Given the difficulty of doing a Syrian intervention right and the fact that it is not the primary U.S. interest in the region, I am not currently persuaded that an intervention would be good U.S. policy. (I know it is heretical to say that anything that happens in the Middle East is not absolutely vital to American interests. But I am increasingly convinced that this particular emperor is naked.) That may change if, for example, the Syrian uprising demonstrates much greater capacity and unity, if the international community begins to coalesce around an anti-Assad position, or if Assad himself starts to look for a way out, the achievement of which should be the focus our diplomatic strategy. Until then, masterly inactivity might be our best military strategy.

Meanwhile, take a moment to reflect: Syria is precisely the sort of mission we should be able to do, but Obama's decision that "U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations" effectively takes it off the table. The fact that we lack the capacity and the will to act when it would be both in our own self-interest and in defense of humanitarian ideals is one of the most damning things that can be said about Obama's defense strategy. That he is now asking for military options for Syria suggests he knows it.

Amidst the growing tensions  and limited policy options over Iran's nuclear program, there has at least been a perceptible improvement in the framing of the public debate, specifically over the use of the term "diplomacy." Here some background is important. During the Bush administration's second term, as the White House led an effort to increase the multilateral economic sanctions regime on Iran and offered the "freeze for freeze" proposal that Mike Singh describes below, critics sometimes accused the Bush administration of pursuing "sanctions instead of diplomacy." Not so, we often protested, because we viewed sanctions as an integral component of diplomacy. Indeed, we believed diplomacy to include the full range of non-kinetic measures in the toolkit, including bilateral and multilateral talks, economic rewards and punishments, resolutions from multilateral fora, and even the possible threat of force - sometimes used in concert with each other for a full spectrum of "diplomacy." More important, we believed that economic sanctions (both potential and actual) helped strengthen our leverage for potential talks, as they demonstrated our diplomatic seriousness and also provided an additional bargaining chip. Thus the charge that sanctions somehow represented a contrast to diplomacy sounded myopic and muddle-headed. The critics' real gripe seemed to reflect their preference at the time for unconditional bilateral talks with Tehran, a wish echoed by then-presidential candidate Obama in the 2008 campaign.

Fast forward to today, as the Obama administration finds itself in the crucible over how to address Iran's nuclear program. As difficult as the policy options may be, at least the terms of the public debate are more accurate. The choices now are often posed as "diplomacy" versus military strikes -- and diplomacy is rightly understood to include the robust sanctions regime currently in place. In their admirable efforts to craft and implement this sanctions regime, the Obama administration has also been operating with a proper definition of diplomacy that includes the economic sanctions, rather than somehow being an alternative to sanctions. Yet worries endure about lapsing into the old false dichotomy, reinforced yesterday by a bipartisan group of Senators.

While diplomacy is being used more accurately today, the Obama administration still occasionally confuses the terms in another way that undermines the diplomatic agenda. By repeatedly asserting that Israel should not attack Iran, and by occasionally contradicting and stepping on its own "all options are on the table" message, the White House undercuts its own diplomacy and ironically makes the possibility of a military strike by Israel or even the U.S. more likely. Why? Because in signaling that the U.S. opposes a military strike, the U.S. erodes the bite of its own sanctions and indicates to Tehran that the current measures are the most severe that the Iranian regime will have to endure. Whereas diplomatic signaling should include a consistent and credible "all options are on the table for both the U.S. and Israel" message that persuades Tehran to believe that a military strike is at least possible. This will make Iran more likely to calculate that things could actually get worse than the present straits and decide that striking a diplomatic bargain to curtail its nuclear program is the best option.

Diplomacy is not mere talking -- it is rather the full range of signaling measures, including sanctions, the threat of force, and yes public and private talking -- that a state can employ to achieve its ends. As former career diplomat (and my grad school instructor) Charlie Hill has written, "diplomacy and power are indispensable and must be used, for best effect, in tandem." In other words, diplomacy without power is mere words. Whereas the context for effective diplomacy provides the meaning behind the words used -- the presence of coercive measures such as sanctions, the possibility of positive inducements, the credibility and authority of the person delivering the words, and the possibility and capability of the use of force.

Even if the Iran crisis does lead to the use of force in some capacity, this will not necessarily mean that diplomacy has been abandoned but rather that diplomacy is entering a critical new phase. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's comments this morning reflect this muddle. On the one hand, she rightly does not rule out the use of force, and she appropriately links negotiations with the sanctions pressure in the diplomatic track. On the other hand, she says that a possible military strike is "not going to end the program." This wording mistakenly de-links the possible use of force from the political goal of ending the Iranian nuclear program. When in fact no one can really know what the political effects of military action might be -- would it increase Tehran's resolve to renew its program, or would it perhaps persuade the regime to give up its nuclear program due to the escalated costs? Here the potential use of force should be integrated as much as possible with the political goals that the Obama administration is trying to achieve -- such as persuading Iran to end its nuclear weapons program, persuading other nations to maintain Iran's diplomatic and economic isolation if it does not, and perhaps even further eroding the support of the Iranian people for their miserable government.

Is al Qaeda dead? Statements by counter-terrorism and intelligence officials suggest that the Obama administration is moving toward this conclusion. In a speech at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies last June, John Brennan said that al Qaeda was "in its decline" and that it was possible to envision the demise of al Qaeda's core leadership in the near future. Leon Panetta was even more forthright in remarks to reporters a month later, arguing that the U.S. was within reach of "strategically defeating al Qaeda," that the group was "on the run," and that killing 10-20 key leaders would lead to its defeat. Two weeks ago DNI James Clapper reiterated the administration's view in his testimony before Congress that core al Qaeda was "diminishing in operational importance," that the movement could soon fragment, and that this would make the core largely of symbolic significance.

It is rather surprising, given this optimistic appraisal, that the second half of Clapper's testimony on terrorism -- as well as the next few lines of Brennan's speech -- detail the resilience and growing threat from al Qaeda affiliates -- the official designation for groups like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrab (AQIM). Both statements warn that these groups are not just maintaining their activities, but are actually expanding in size and influence while now seeking to attack the U.S. How can the strategic defeat of al Qaeda be at hand if its affiliates are surging?

The apparent contradiction within these two statements suggests that there might be inconsistencies in how the U.S. assesses progress in the war against al Qaeda. Over the next few days I'll attempt to tease out these inconsistencies and provide some clarity on the four interrelated questions that the U.S. must answer if we want to understand where we are at in the war with al Qaeda: How do we define al Qaeda; what does al Qaeda want to achieve (i.e. what are its objectives); how well do we think al Qaeda is doing at achieving these objectives; and finally how well do we think we're doing at stopping al Qaeda.

Let's start with the most fundamental of these questions: What is al Qaeda? It might seem strange that more than ten years after 9-11 we are still struggling to answer this question, but understanding this enemy has never been an easy task. In their official remarks, both Brennan and Clapper provide the administration's answer: Al Qaeda is cleanly divided into a core that has as its key objective attacking the U.S., affiliates that have shown interest in attacking us but generally focus on local concerns, and "adherents" -- individuals who have been inspired by al Qaeda's ideology, but have no organizational connection to the core. Given this description, if asked to choose between describing al Qaeda as a movement that inspires and motivates or an organization that directs, commands, and controls a global war, I believe that the administration would answer "movement."

This seems like a plausible answer, and it has been used to guide successful U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, but it leaves out a necessary piece of the puzzle: it ignores how al Qaeda defines itself. In multiple statements, al Qaeda's leaders have consistently asserted that their group as an organization with a fully articulated bureaucracy and administrative committees, the vanguard or "High Command," of a global jihad against the Crusaders and Jews (and their allies). Another, more detailed, explication of their views is presented in a 2009 interview with Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the now dead "General Manager" for al Qaeda. Abu al-Yazid was asked how large al Qaeda was, and he used the opportunity to describe three tiers within the organization: the leadership and those who have sworn an oath of loyalty to the leaders (what we call the core); multiple groups and individuals that joined directly with the command to fight in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and what he calls "branches," that al Qaeda has opened in "many Muslim countries."

Abu al-Yazid also claimed that the leadership had direct command and control over all these parts of its organization, despite the difficulties posed by distance and wartime conditions, ordering, for example, the branches to carry out attacks against the U.S. This was not just boasting. At the time of the interview, it was the official position of the U.S. government that AQAP, AQIM, and other affiliates were focused on local concerns and would never attempt to attack the homeland. Six months after Abu al-Yazid made this assertion, an AQAP member tried to set off a bomb in his underwear on a U.S. flight into Detroit, and since then a series of plots have been disrupted involving various affiliates.

It's now possible to understand, at least partially, the apparent contradiction between the two parts of Brennan and Clapper's statements: the U.S. has attempted to disaggregate the "high command" from the troops that they claim to be commanding. Our current CT (counter-terrorism) strategy targets the high command (the Core), and thus the claim that "al Qaeda" is almost defeated, while leaving the forces in the field (the "affiliates") relatively untouched. A rough analogy to current U.S. strategy -- although without the nation-state structures to provide a sturdy backbone -- would be if in a future war, an enemy targeted the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon, and the Combatant Commanders in an attempt to decapitate U.S. forces in the field, but was unable to take on U.S. troops directly.

Of course it is one thing for al Qaeda to claim command and control over all these forces, and quite another thing to actually exert it. Measuring this will require a further investigation of al Qaeda's objectives and the group's ability to achieve these objectives.

Dennis Ross has made an interesting appeal for talks with Iran. He rightly points out that the current Obama strategy on Iran was to squeeze Iran with sufficiently painful sanctions so that Iran's cost-benefit calculation would change, making the regime decide that the costs of the nuclear program were not worth the gain. Since there is evidence that the Iranians are experiencing the kind of pain the strategy called for, Ross says it is worth testing whether this has adjusted Iran's cost-benefit calculation enough to make a deal possible.

Ross is clear-eyed about the modest prospects for success. Given the costs of the alternatives, I find Ross pretty compelling. But he buries the weak link in the strategy inside these two sentences: "Of course, Iran's government might try to draw out talks while pursuing their nuclear program. But if that is their strategy, they will face even more onerous pressures, when a planned European boycott of their oil begins on July 1."

As Ross surely knows, the Iranians have a standard approach for alleviating the kind of sanctions and isolation they currently face. It involves offering negotiations, but then insisting that the sanctions be lifted as a show of good faith or as a way of creating conducive conditions for fruitful talks or simply as a precondition for getting the Iranians to the table. The Iranians have been fairly adept at making it look like it was Western pressure that was hobbling diplomacy, thus creating pressure on our side to ease the sanctions. Even when the United States has stood firm, sometimes our allies and partners have wobbled. By and large, the Iranians have been more effective at using the prospects of negotiations to improve their chances of wiggling out of sanctions than our side has been at using the sanctions to improve the prospects for negotiations. And while the dynamic plays itself out, Iran has kept marching toward the nuclear threshold.

So I would endorse Ross's call for yet another round of negotiations, but only with certain provisos which are prerequisites for the strategy to succeed:

• All current sanctions must be maintained at the current level of pressure throughout, until a deal is struck that will verifiably prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
• All planned new sanctions must be imposed, as scheduled, unless and until the deal is struck and implemented.
• "Signs of progress" and other lesser concessions by the Iranian side should be met with comparable rhetorical gestures and perhaps other sweeteners (e.g., an exchange of midlevel diplomatic visits), but not with an easing of the sanctions pressure.

A friend closer to the action than I am tells me it is "inconceivable" that a new diplomatic push would not undermine sanctions pressure. If he is right, it is also nearly inconceivable that diplomacy would work. But, as they say in the business, this is an empirical question. We can find out.

If the Obama team can pull off this delicate diplomatic maneuver -- negotiating with Iran without simultaneously undermining our negotiating leverage over Iran -- that would be quite an accomplishment. Even then, it might not be enough to secure a deal. And it still leaves an exceptionally complex part of the problem underdeveloped, for I have buried another weak link of this strategy in my description of the deal: "…will verifiably prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

But, as Ross suggests, it is the only way diplomacy stands a chance of succeeding. And this part will be fairly easy to monitor. If we ease up our pressure while negotiating, we will know that the negotiations are probably doomed.

People who believe negotiations will fail and believe that the military option is the only remaining recourse should not oppose one last diplomatic push. The political predicate for the military option is a consensus that all reasonable nonmilitary options have been tried and found wanting. It is unlikely President Obama would believe that predicate was met without another test of the diplomatic waters.

There is yet one other weak link in the strategy. If there is a genuine window of opportunity after which the military option is pointless -- as claimed by the Israelis in the "zone of immunity" -- and if negotiations are strung out beyond the closing of that window, that would dramatically increase the costs of pursuing another round of diplomacy. I do not know enough about the operational details to adjudicate this. Perhaps no one, not even the Israelis and the Iranians themselves, know for sure. But if I am right about the political predicate for military action, then the hawks should be the ones pushing most urgently for diplomacy, albeit on a very short deadline.

Optimists and pessimists on the Iranian nuclear issue can both find support for their dispositions from recent developments. Optimists can point to Tehran's growing international isolation, reduction in petroleum export markets, ineffective Hezbollah attacks borne of desperation, the genuine bite of economic sanctions, fragility in its main ally in Syria, and some new indications of Iran's openness to inspections and negotiations. Pessimists can point to Tehran's blustering defiance, continued enrichment activities, dispersal and hardening of nuclear sites, endurance of tremendous economic hardship (and even willingness to self-inflict further hardship by cutting off petroleum exports to fragile European economies), activation of its global terror networks, continued ambivalence from Russia and China, and Israel's heightened anxieties.

Both camps also invoke history to support their judgments. Yet just how history can actually guide U.S. policy towards Iran is less clear. Frank Gavin and Jim Steinberg have a very insightful article addressing this question, and their answer is as true as it is unsettling: history can't help as much as we might hope, at least in the sense of offering prescriptive "lessons." Describing the tendency of policy-makers to cherry-pick historical analogies in support of pre-existing positions, Gavin and Steinberg show how the misuse of history can distort more than enlighten. Yet they also explain that the fact that the "lessons" of history do not produce a clear answer on the "to bomb or not to bomb" question does not mean that history has no insight to offer. Rather, history reminds us that plans and predictions are frequently confounded, that actions taken -- or not taken -- almost always have second, third, and fourth order effects, and that the consequences of such choices are often not known until decades after. Just as history's guidance may be uncertain, history's verdicts can be unforgiving.

Along with the Gavin and Steinberg article, Peter Feaver's post below discusses another frustrating facet of the prevailing Iran debate: the tendency of advocates on all sides to maximize their optimistic assumptions while minimizing the risks and uncertainties of their preferred position. As intellectual critiques, the points made by Gavin, Steinberg, and Feaver are serious and well-taken. Moreover, neither article represents a case of armchair quarterbacking. Each author knows that policy choices will need to be made amidst these uncertainties, with the attendant trade-offs and risks and potentially grave consequences.

To indulge in some unseemly disciplinary chauvinism, one thing that history can tell us is how relatively unique the Iran situation is, with no clear historical precedent or analogy. This contrasts with the limited predictive value of political science modeling that substitutes parsimony for complexity. For example, this article runs a quantitative analysis of the previous behavior of states that acquire nuclear weapons, and essentially concludes that nuclear states don't show a greater propensity for international mischief and disputes. Unfortunately the model treats all nuclear states as the same monolithic actors, and ignores other complicating factors such as changes in the international system, nuclear safeguards, ties to non-state actors such as terrorist groups, and especially regime type.

In contrast, history can tell us just how unprecedented the current Iran situation is: a potentially nuclear-armed state that combines support for terrorism, existential threats to neighboring states, an apocalyptic religious ideology, substantial energy reserves, and ambitions for regional hegemony. Yet history also reveals that the current international campaign to pressure Iran may also be unprecedented: extremely tight economic sanctions imposed by the world's two largest economies (the US and EU), escalating defense counter-measures by most regional powers, a vigorous sabotage and covert action campaign, and a brittle regime desperately afraid of further mass protests by its own citizens. Finally, history shows that our plans, assumptions, and actions rarely turn out as we hope, and so whatever course of action the Obama Administration takes -- whether attack or not -- robust contingency plans will need to be in place to deal with the unexpected.

Finally, as Gavin and Steinberg describe, there remains a pressing need and opportunity for more rigorous training across disciplines on how historical consciousness can be brought to bear on strategy and statecraft. To that end (shameless plug alert!), here at the University of Texas-Austin we're putting together a program to do just that. Aspiring grad students take note: If great college football, delicious BBQ, and studying history and security policy appeal to you, then keep us in mind.

Meanwhile, as history continues to unfold, its wisdom remains available to policy-makers -- if they listen and ask of it the right questions.

How to explain the Russian and Chinese vetoes of the U.N. resolution condemning the Syrian government's continuing killing spree against its own people? What strategic interest or moral imperative dominates their thinking?

Officially, Russia and China claim to be preventing the international community from doing another Libya; they are insisting on patience and "balance." The U.S., UK, France, the rest of the Security Council and pretty much the rest of the world, including the Arab League, beg to differ. Those speaking out the most forcefully don't buy what they consider excuse making for a bloody dictator.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice finds no ethical stance that can justify it, calling the vetoes "disgusting" and "shameful" and warning that the blame for the future deaths of Syrian civilians is on Russia and China. Amb. Rice does not comment on what strategic interests the vetoing states might be pursuing, though we can certainly speculate.

For Russia, Syria's dictatorship is its last client left standing in the Middle East, both political and economic since Syria provides a warm seaport and buys Russian weaponry. To watch it fall means ceding the field largely to the U.S. and the EU, and losing revenue. The stakes are indeed high for Russia. For China, the best explanation is inertia; China defines its national interest -- apart from its freedom to engage in commerce wherever it can -- according to the principle of non-intervention. Its reaction to the Syria situation is like its reaction to every other such situation: everyone should mind his own business, we like things as they are. (That China seems to contradict itself when it comes to Filipino, Vietnamese, or Japanese territorial interests requires a little semantic gymnastics.)

But let's look at this matter from thirty thousand feet. This latest turn in the Syrian tragedy reminds one of Talleyrand's famous comment applied to Napoleon's judicial murder of a noble: "[I]t was worse than a crime, it was a mistake." That is, the stance the Russians and the Chinese are taking hinders them from attaining the very goal they seek: to be seen as legitimate world leaders on par with the U.S. and the EU. When the West and the Arab League are on the same page, and most of the second and third ranking powers and beyond are with them, any state taking Bashar al-Assad's side is hard-pressed to stake a claim for world leadership. Syria's blatant violation of the norms of the U.N. Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights is patently obvious, as was the late Muammar Qaddafi's. For Russia and China to fail to recognize that and join the rest of the world in condemning it and seeking an end to these violations is in some ways worse: We expect tyrants like al-Assad to do what he is doing, but since the democracy revolutions and the Arab Spring, we rightly expect a different reaction from members of the Security Council entrusted with the only international organizational authority to do something about it.

No one expects Russia to lightly watch an ally go down, or for China to acquiesce in what it considers the violation of the most important international relations principle. Neither country wants to see further precedents being set of the average citizen rising up to challenge the established power. But I'd use their own words against them, the words they used in announcing their veto regarding the need in the resolution for "balance." There was a certain logic to calls for "balance" during the Cold War no matter how clanging it sounded. Much of international relations was a zero-sum game. But the Cold War is over. The publics of the Middle East are all in various stages of uprising and rebellion against centuries of tyranny, and they are aided by technology and social media in a way that means they will not be deterred short of death. That is a fact. Therefore, to oppose them and call for "balance" or "restraint" is to side with those who would without compunction kill as many of their citizens as they have to in order to stay in power; we're talking genocide now as a matter of course and endless instability. The democracy genie is out of the bottle.

So now the logic of "balance" is moot; urging acceptance of the democracy-crushing status quo is a spent force. International prestige and legitimate claims to world leadership now rest on those who accept that history has indeed ended in this sense: People want the dignity of self-government and they have the technological means to perpetually bring once unshakeable dictators to the nightmare scenario. Would-be world leaders should choose the right side now. After all, both ethics and logic point the way clearly now. That's the real "reset" that is needed, and it is good to see the Obama administration's diplomats at the UN representing it.

Over at the indispensable Cable, word comes that the White House is now pushing the line that President Obama eschews the notion of "American decline," and has even become a devoted reader of Bob Kagan. As presidential reading lists go, this is a welcome development. If present trends continue, perhaps the White House communications shop will soon issue a story noting that President Obama is also a reader of Shadow Government? [ed. Dream on! Are you just saying this to bait the anonymous snarky responses that will soon appear in the "Comments" section? Or are you in denial that the President is much more likely to read Dan Drezner's blog? Who, by the way, is funnier than you -- and also doesn't believe in American decline.]

All kidding aside, this is a serious issue that merits some scrutiny. On the one hand, President Obama's rhetorical rejection of American decline is significant and welcome, precisely because presidential rhetoric plays a role in forming a nation's character and actions. As I have commented before, if a nation's leadership and citizens start believing the nation is in decline, it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy and infecting the nation's actions.

But presidential rhetoric is only a small part of the decline debate. Actions and policies are more important. So before junior White House staff start emulating their boss's reported new reading tastes and prompt a surge in Pennsylvania Avenue subscriptions to the likes of the Weekly Standard (to our friends at the Standard: may it be thus!), it is worth taking a closer look at this claim that the Obama administration rejects American decline.

This theme not inconveniently comes in an election year, as President Obama attempts to lay out his policy successes. As many others have pointed out, the White House seems reluctant to run on his major domestic policy initiatives such as ObamaCare or the $787 billion stimulus, judging by their almost complete absence from the State of the Union address. Instead, part of the campaign strategy seems to be pointing to foreign policy successes, such as in Obama's recent interview with Fareed Zakaria (himself a frequent apostle of American decline) where the president repeatedly claims that America's standing in the world is better than it was three years ago.

The inconvenient truth behind this claim is that most the Obama administration's foreign policy successes have come from adopting policies and strategies from the Bush administration. While as Jackson Diehl among others has pointed out, most of the Obama administration's signature initiatives have been failures. On the explicit question of American decline, rather than offering a full-throated rebuttal in his interview with Zakaria, Obama seems curiously ambivalent. On the one hand he strongly affirms American global leadership and repeats Madeleine Albright's description of the United States as the "indispensable nation," but on the other hand he says it is "inevitable" that China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy.

Besides being a gifted journalist, Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker has also emerged as one of the White House's favored conduits for channeling the Administration's mindset and messages. For example, earlier this week Lizza published an article based on exclusive access he'd been given by the White House to internal decision memos on domestic policy. And it was also Lizza who received extensive access from senior administration officials for his famous profile of the White House's foreign policy last spring. Most notorious is the "leading from behind" phrase that the White House has regretted ever since, but the context it came from in the article is revealing and bears recalling (emphasis added):

Nonetheless, Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the President's actions in Libya as "leading from behind." That's not a slogan designed for signs at the 2012 Democratic Convention, but it does accurately describe the balance that Obama now seems to be finding. It's a different definition of leadership than America is known for, and it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world.

This deliberate message from the White House probably bears a closer resemblance to President Obama's strategic mindset than election year sit-downs with journalists or campaign lines from State of the Union addresses. Why? Because it also reflects many of the administration's actions. Such as the drawdown decisions in Iraq and Afghanistan that seemed to reflect political timetables more than conditions on the ground and commitments to maintaining American credibility. Or the recent "pivot" to Asia, which as many of us have pointed out is a welcome assertion of American presence in a strategic region but loses its potency if it is under-resourced, and presented as a retreat elsewhere because of our diminished capabilities. Or the administration's persistent refusal to make any serious cuts and reforms to the domestic entitlements that are fueling our runaway debt -- while the only spending cuts the White House has actually implemented are to the defense budget, which as Gary Schmitt points out is what we can least afford. And yes, even "leading from behind" our European allies during the Libya intervention.

Given the above actions the administration has taken that do diminish America's power and credibility in the world, is America actually in decline? No -- not yet anyway. Bob Kagan is correct. Our nation has too many strengths and is too resilient to be set back that much in such a short time. America's problems are considerable, but I would still rather have our challenges than the problems facing any other nation, whether China's brittle governance, imbalanced economy, demographic troubles, and resentful neighbors, or the European Union's currency and debt crisis, democratic deficit, and anemic defense capabilities. Rather, the worry is that the Obama administration's combination of actions and inactions are setting the United States on a trajectory towards decline -- a trajectory that if it continues unabated will be hard to arrest.

The LA Times is carrying an interesting and important story about the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of the war in Afghanistan. The NIE is classified, but has been briefed to Congress (Congressional sources seem to have formed the basis for the article). The article states that the intelligence community has concluded that while the military has made significant gains against the Taliban, the war has ground to a stalemate. It cites three causes for the stalemate: (1) pervasive corruption and incompetence by the Afghan government; (2) sanctuary for Taliban in Pakistan; and (3) reductions in U.S. forces.

The commentariat will have a feeding frenzy on the Director of Central Intelligence supporting a set of conclusions he had objected to last year when he was commander of the war effort in Afghanistan. But Dave Petraeus' reaction is the least interesting part of this story.

If the LA Times is accurate (and they have the best reporting on the middle east of any American newspaper), the NIE is going to be very damaging to the war effort. It also sounds about right in its assessment: we are militarily winning the war, but badly hindered by the shoddy Afghan government and the willingness of Pakistan to assist the Taliban. The NIE itself is quoted to question the viability of the Karzai government, even before the U.S. withdraws its troops.

The NIE evidently earned a formal protest from the entire leadership fighting the war, including General Mattis, the CENTCOM commander (responsible for all the Middle East and South Asia); Admiral Stavridis, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (it is a NATO mission); General Allen, the Afghan war commander; and Ambassador Crocker, the Ambassador in Afghanistan. Among their reported objections are that the NIE bases its analysis on the assumption that all U.S. troops will depart Afghanistan in 2014; the Afghan war team insist that decision has not been made.

I hope they're right. The central problem with President Obama's strategy for the war in Afghanistan has always been his deadline. The Taliban claim that we have the watches, but they have the time. And the President has already compromised our war effort(s) by setting deadlines for troop withdrawals that are unconnected to the end states his strategy seeks to achieve.

Our exit strategy for Afghanistan is to build an Afghan government, including security forces, that can do the work Americans are fighting and dying to succeed at now. That's both sensible and achievable, the only way to make our gains more than transitory. But nothing in the Administration's choices about either Iraq or Afghanistan suggests they will allow facts on the ground to determine the pace of their drawdown.

The Obama Administration scored a lot of cheap points against their predecessor by hailing the arrival of "smart power" -- using political, military, and economic means in seamless orchestration. If reports of the NIE are accurate, it would be a terrible condemnation of the Administration's efforts. For only the American military has proven able to achieve any effect in the complex task of nation building in Afghanistan, and it has done so without either the political or diplomatic support necessary to make their achievements durable.

The recent news that the Taliban plans to open an office in Qatar and pursue negotiations with the United States has raised a number of important questions -- for the United States, for Afghanistan's future, for the U.S.-Pakistani relationship and for the war on terror.

There are always risks in talking with any terrorist group, and the Taliban are no different in this respect. Most knowledgeable observers believe that the Afghan security forces, individually or with the assistance of the U.S. and ISAF, will not be able to defeat the Taliban on the battlefield, at least anytime soon. This means that some type of negotiated solution is the best near-term bet to halt the fighting.

What is interesting is why the Taliban has agreed to a formal diplomatic process now. In a sense, this opening is not really a new development. The United States has been talking to, and with, the Taliban since the Clinton administration, when the U.S. asked that it hand over Osama bin Laden. What is new is that this marks the first time that a formal diplomatic process is being established to broker an end to the conflict.

No one can be sure as to the Taliban's motivations, which could range from general war fatigue, to wanting a halt to U.S. Predator strikes and night raids, to wanting the Obama administration transfer some of its high-ranking members from Guantanamo to Qatar. It is also possible that the latest diplomatic moves could merely reflect the desire of only one faction of the Taliban to explore a peace deal; every insurgency or terrorist group appears from the outside to be more coherent and unified than they are in reality.

Who, precisely, represents the "Taliban" in these talks is not a trivial matter. In 2010, the U.S., NATO and the Afghan government pursued talks (and transferred funds) to an individual purporting to be Mullah Omar's number 2. In reality, he was a Pakistani convenience store owner with a beard.

The administration seems to have road-tested the credibility of the Taliban officials who will be sitting across the table in Doha, but questions remain in at least three areas. The United States still needs to determine: (1) whether the Taliban officials sitting across the negotiating table represent themselves, a small faction, or a broader constituency, (2) whether they have the authority to impose any agreement on the mujahedeen in the field, and (3) whether they have a genuine interest in a permanent halt to the conflict on terms that are agreeable to the United States and its Afghan partner (e.g., renouncing ties to al Qaeda, laying down their weapons and supporting the Afghan constitution).

Of course, talking to the Taliban is not cost-free. Harm may be done to the relationship between Washington and Kabul. After the Taliban killed the chief Afghan negotiator, Burhanuddin Rabbani, last September, President Hamid Karzai stated that he would no longer negotiate. Karzai subsequently opposed the idea of talks when it was initially floated, recalling the Afghan ambassador from Qatar, and he did not immediately support the talks when they were formally announced last week, suggesting that he still has grave reservations and is being dragged reluctantly by the Obama administration into this process.

Previously, both Washington and Kabul had agreed that any peace process would have to be "Afghan-led." Clearly, that has not happened and represents a significant conceptual difference between the U.S. and its key ally before the talks have even started. This will complicate the U.S. and Afghanistan coordinating future negotiating positions. And, at some point down the road, Kabul is going to have to take the lead and "own" this process if it stands a chance of success.

Read on

The Arab League has finally begun to take the well-being of Arab peoples as seriously -- more seriously -- than its cherished dream of Arab unity. The League negotiated with Syria's dictator to produce an agreement Assad would cease violence against the people of Syria. When Assad violated his side of the deal, the Arab League held him to account, decrying his continuing aggression. At Saturday's League meeting, they formally sanctioned Syria's leader for continued violence against the Syrian people and not honoring his promises of political dialogue and release of political prisoners. They called for a meeting of Syrian dissidents and urged consensus on them to more effectively pressure Assad. The Arab League set a clock ticking for Assad to comply; if he does not within four days, further political and economic sanctions will go into effect.

The only previous time the Arab League has been willing to call out a member government was after the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi as he closed in on Benghazi. Qaddafi was a special case, having attempted to assassinate heads of other Arab governments. And the Arab League was following a U.N. lead;  in taking action on Syria, the Arab League has led where Russia and China prevent condemnation at the United Nations.

These actions constitute an admirable strategy of escalating and increasingly public pressure by regional governments. The vote in the twenty-two member Arab League was 18 condemnations of Syria (only Yemen and Lebanon voted to shield Syria; Iraq abstained). Technically, League rules require unanimity. Yet, as NATO did during the Kosovo war, the Arab League found a way to express its will rather than let itself be hamstrung by technicalities.

The shame for Americans is that the Arab League, so long a regressive force in the politics of the region, has a better Syria policy than does the Obama administration. 3,500 Syrians have been killed by their government this year; during that time, our government has adjusted its position from considering Bashar al-Assad a reformer -- Secretary Hillary Clinton's memorable phrase -- to saying "he cannot deny his people's legitimate demands indefinitely." 

The "Obama Doctrine," as the White House has termed its choices on Libya, gives to Russia and China a veto -- literally -- on U.S. support for freedom movements and human rights activists. This is disgraceful. Without a U.N. Security Council Resolution, the Obama administration will not consider significant support to the Syrians engaged in a fight to protect themselves from a despot.

Clinton outlined the rationale for treating the Syrian case different from the Obama Doctrine: "our choices also reflect other interests in the region with a real impact on Americans' lives - including our fight against al Qaeda; defense of our allies; and a secure supply of energy." One might ask the Secretary of State which of these interests would be in conflict with working to rein in the barbarism of an enemy of the United States who fosters terrorism and has killed 3,500 Syrians this year alone. Adding insult to injury, Clinton gave this explanation in a speech on promoting democracy.

Where the Arab League has been negotiating with Bashir al-Assad to curb his predations against the people of Syria, the Obama Administration fecklessly repeats that Assad must step down. And this from a President that insisted he would negotiate with anyone.

After a brave start by Ambassador Robert Ford in Syria, the State Department has recalled him because Syria is dangerous. Less so to an U.S. ambassador than to the people he was bearing witness for, though, and who now have no potent symbol of America's support for their cause. 

Withdrawing our ambassador is, in fact, the sadly appropriate symbol of Obama administration policy toward Syria. They pretend engagement but are unwilling to run risks in support of freedom. Instead they pontificate piously from a safe distance while others undertake the difficult, honorable work of bringing despots to their knees.

How fortunate are the people of Syria that they have the governments of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab League to stand up for freedom and universal human rights; what a pity the Obama administration will not.

President Obama's statement supporting the action of the Arab League says it all: "the Arab League has demonstrated leadership in its effort to end the crisis and hold the Syrian government accountable."

On Sept. 22, I testified to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs regarding the abuse of human rights in Iran and Syria. The wide-scale human rights abuses we are witnessing in these countries are atrocious, but they are certainly not new. The abuses perpetrated by Bashar al-Assad's Syria and Ali Khamenei's Iran stretch back for years and are a key element in those regimes' system of authoritarian control over their people. The Iranian and Syrian regimes have, in an effort to establish and maintain this control, cultivated illusions of democracy, prosperity, and stability which are belied by the underlying realities of these countries. The great achievement of both the Iranian and Syrian opposition is to have shattered these illusions, which neither regime will easily be able to reconstruct. Looking ahead, the U.S. should do all it can to assist opposition activists in both Iran and Syria to break the control exerted by their regimes. Whether in Iran or in Syria, preventing human rights abuses necessarily means supporting democracy.

You can read my entire written testimony here.

Like my colleague Peter Feaver, I found Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications Ben Rhodes' interview with FP's Josh Rogin troubling. I share Peter's concern that the Obama Administration is early to the party of claiming credit and is disrespectful to the commitments and sacrifices our allies have made in other wars. But even beyond the unseemliness of claiming credit where others have fought and died, the Obama Administration's strategy of regime change neither encourages regime change nor addresses the hard cases where American national interests are threatened.

It is absolutely true that if local forces rebel and receive sufficient external support, they can change their countries, and that change has the greatest domestic legitimacy and can be achieved at a very low price to the United States. But it also means that we will not actually change regimes; we will advocate insurgencies against governments and assist at the margins. That is a legitimate strategy. It is not, however, one in which we should be claiming credit for the outcome. We have been marginal players in Libya, and our efforts do not merit the accolades the Administration is giving itself.

President Barack Obama's model of regime change is letting others do the work while we take credit for what they achieve. It's a cost-effective way to shape the international order, provided that local forces and other countries are willing to undertake the hard work. But do we think the experience Britain and France have had with the United States in Libya operations is likely to inspire them to the forefront of other regime changes? Do we think rebel forces in Syria or North Korea believe this model of regime change assists their cause? It is a strategy that depends fundamentally on others to create change, and accepts that we will not force a change of government -- no matter how evil or threatening to our interests that government is -- unless the conditions of domestic insurgency and multinational effort are in place.

Rhodes' approach remains innocent of consideration that it solves the easy problems, not the hard ones. Would Afghanistan have overthrown the Taliban or Iraqis overthrown Saddam Hussein on that model? Would the "growing international chorus of condemnation" that Secretary Clinton applauds for getting us "where we need to be" on Syria coalesce to undertake missions that demanding? In fact, we know the answer: it is not changing the regime in Syria, because that's too hard.

Which is to say that the Obama Administration's regime change strategy is actually not comparable to the Bush Administration's, because it isn't dealing with the hard cases. Before they can claim the laurel of a superior approach, the Obama Administration ought to have to answer how they would have dealt with Saddam Hussein remaining in violation of 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions, whose behavior toward U.N. weapons inspectors strongly suggested progress on nuclear weapons, who not only had chemical weapons and had used them on an enemy in war but had also used them on its own population, and all in the frightening aftermath of attacks on the United States. Nor is it clear from Ben Rhodes' self-congratulatory complacency how they would have dealt with the government of Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when there wasn't a rebel force or the capacity in other countries to undertake the necessary military operations.

The Obama Administration's regime change strategy suggests highly unsatisfactory outcomes for cases in which the United States has actual national security interests in the conflict.